Look before you leap

All bridge players have often been told that, while declaring, it is essential to plan your play at trick one. Take the time you need before you play the first card from dummy to

1. Count your winners
2. Count your losers
3. If you are short of tricks, figure out where the rest of the tricks could come from.
4. If you have no problem with the contract, consider what could go wrong

Here is a problem where you can apply all these concepts

Against your contract of 7♠, West has led the ♠3. How will you go about making 13 tricks?

This is a simple, yet tricky problem, so do take your time thinking about it.

And kudos to you if you get the solution at the first attempt (which is the only way you can make the contract at the table!)

How the play went:

A very fine player of national repute had an aberration in today’s deal from the Winter Nationals, held in Pune some years ago.

Declarer played the two from dummy, East following with the nine. After winning the opening lead, declarer cashed the ♣A and ruffed a club with the ♠10. Entering hand by the ♥Q, declarer ruffed one more club with the ♠A, both defenders following suit.

He now ruffed the ♦3 in his hand and tried to draw trumps. To his dismay, he found his RHO showing out on the second round, thereby going down in the contract because the ♠8 had got promoted in the west hand. The full hand was

Analysis:

Let us now analyze the hand on the lines that the experts have guided us

1. Once the lead hits the table, we can count 11 winners viz 5 Spades, 3 Clubs and 3 Hearts
2. We can see two two losers in our hand.
3. We can take care of the losers by ruffing two clubs in dummy.
4. The above seems to ensure 13 tricks. What could go wrong?The only obstacle that we can overcome is spades breaking 4-1. The way to ensure that is by engineering a ruff with the ♠2 and use 4 high trumps to draw opposing trumps

Accordingly, we win the opening lead in dummy with the ace. Play a club to the ace and ruff a club with the ♠2. Enter hand by ♥Q and ruff one more club. Now ruff the ♦3 in hand, draw trumps with the ♠ K-Q-J, and claim the balance.

Did you play the hand right? Do let us know in the comments section below!

Disclaimer : All opinions are entirely those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the BridgeFromHome Team.